Weekend box office: Pitch Perfect 2 and Mad Max beat the Avengers

Brad SturdivantMay 17th, 2015

Box office pundits are acting surprised that PITCH PERFECT 2 is on track to pull in over $60 million at the weekend box office. But perhaps they didn’t know a female the last two years that had seen PITCH PERFECT and loved it. Yes, it’s true that the first film only made $65 million in its entire run, but when it hit Blu-ray, people went crazy. So I’m not surprised the sequel opened to huge numbers. However, I think MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (click the link to read our review) pulling in over $40 million might be more of a surprise. We haven’t had a Mad Max film in 30 years and I wasn’t convinced audiences would be interested in revisiting that world. But critics have gone crazy for the Tom Hardy film and the result is a nice opening. As for AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, don’t feel too sorry for it. The film has grossed over $370 million in three weeks and even though it might slide down the box office charts, it’s going to make a ton of cash on home video in a few months.

Next week sees the release of the George Clooney starring and Brad Bird directed TOMORROWLAND. The film has been so top secret that the secrecy might actually be hurting the hype. We haven’t heard much about it and by this time, summer movies are usually getting praised or skewered by critics. We also have the POLTERGEIST remake, which could do well in a crowd void of horror films. But I don’t think you can be against PITCH PERFECT 2 next weekend or even MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Good word of mouth could keep both of them going. Note: the numbers below will be updated as they become final.